


Sitting in a tin can

by Petra



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Community: brains_in_a_jar, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-27
Updated: 2010-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:08:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/103783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Petra/pseuds/Petra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I had an accident and woke up as a spaceship. (no spoilers)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sitting in a tin can

**Author's Note:**

> Mechanical/technological for Kink Bingo. Beta-read by [](http://sage.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**sage**](http://sage.dreamwidth.org/).

  
"My name is Sam Tyler. I had an accident and woke up as a spaceship. Am I mad, in a coma, or in space? Whatever's happened, it's like I've landed on several different planets. Now, maybe if I can work out the reason, I can get home."

"What are you mumbling about now, Sammy?" Captain Hunt said, and smacked his hand on the brown, worn console.

Sam couldn't feel the impact, though it disturbed the calibration on several instruments that he then had to reset. "Going over old files, that's all," he said, and turned the playback on his first log down even further. He'd thought it was low enough that humans wouldn't pick up on it, but then he frequently underestimated his captain's abilities, whether that was in fighting, drinking, or creating a nuisance.

Hunt leaned back in his battered tan chair and stretched. "Naught to do between the stars even for you, is there?" His hand on the console turned into more of a caress.

That was not strictly true, as Sam was monitoring the engineer and the life-support tech while he talked to Hunt. First Mate Carling was snoring in his bunk and their cook-cum-cargo manager-cum-contract-negotiator Nelson was in the cramped galley, planning the human crew's next meal. The volatile organic compounds of the cooking food made Sam nostalgic for his lost body.

He had only the vaguest memories of being struck by the transport on Sandford, of the medics and whatever treatment he'd received. When he began his job as a law enforcer there, he'd signed up for the Cranioship program as an corollary to organ reuse, but he'd never expected it to come to pass. With modern weaponry, criminals tended to either find nonviolent means to achieve their ends or leave hapless enforcers as a layer of interior decor.

When he'd first found himself running a ship, he hadn't believed that it could be real. It was so foreign to everything he'd ever known, constant data inputs without proper senses to filter them. Once he'd accepted that he was not, in fact, losing his mind, but had lost his physical self instead, things grew slightly easier.

On the other hand, he was effectively penniless and trapped in a fourth-hand shipping vessel that was so old it ran on protocols he'd only seen in ancient holovids. It was a small, sepia, roughly cylindrical ship with a crew to match, air-to-space capable with proper upkeep, but slow. Sam wouldn't have chosen it himself, but he'd been unconscious, possibly legally dead, through the process of ship and crew selection. Technically, he could fire the whole crew and find another, but Sam believed that he was better off with the devils he was coming to know than he would be with another set of people whose foibles he would have to learn.

Though while Captain Hunt slouched in his command chair, looking out at the stars and stroking himself lazily through his beige trousers, not giving a damn for Sam's need to monitor the area come Hell or high water--which were two things he was monitoring to prevent--the urge to get the engineer to put her work aside and throw the captain out the airlock was increasingly strong. "You have a functional cabin," Sam said. He tweaked the environmental controls in the command compartment so that the temperature began to drop and vented the heat into the corridor, using fans as far away from the captain and his sensitive hearing as he could manage.

"The view's better from here," Hunt said, and put his foot up on the console, booted heel resting above the controls. "And here I've got company besides. Not as many pickups in my cabin, are there?"

Sam groaned. "I'm going voice-only till you're done."

Hunt patted the console and grinned lasciviously at the vid pickup that monitored the chair. "I checked your files from the last time you told me that. Liar. You'll watch it all and love it."

There was no reason Sam had to swear aloud, so he didn't. Instead, he entered the situation in his database of the many, many reasons he could rid himself of Hunt at the first possible opportunity. The file was bulging with all the reasons why he would, if the bastard weren't also ridiculously competent when push came to shove. "It's not safe," Sam said, letting irritation color his tone. "Anything could happen."

"This far from a system?" Hunt gave his erection a comfortable squeeze. "As long as you keep Cartwright from blowing the engines and Skelton from flooding the place with sulfur, we're fine. You do your job and I'll do mine."

Sam turned most of his monitoring to the hallway outside, which, due to security procedures he'd written himself, only lasted until there was movement in the command compartment. Having an unimpeded recording of the captain's penis made him miss his own fiercely and fruitlessly. "The whole point is that it's impossible to tell what might happen," he said, though Hunt knew that as well as anyone. "For example, my captain could decide to fiddle with himself in the command compartment and get bodily fluids all over the manual interfaces."

"What kind of ruddy fool do you take me for?" Hunt asked, a burr in his voice that hadn't been there before he started teasing himself in earnest. He patted down the pockets of the jacket he habitually wore and pulled out an immensely unsanitary bit of cloth.

There were sensors and programs Sam could use to analyze the spots on the fabric, but he turned them off consciously. It was better not to know what kind of disease vector the thing was. "The kind of fool who wants an audience for his fooling around but can't be buggered to find one that can play along."

Hunt laughed, gasped, gave himself a good long squeeze--Sam kept his sympathetic, jealous whimper silent--and brought himself to orgasm, catching the mess with his cloth. "Next time we're landed, you can give me a ride on your cargo waldoes, then."

They weren't meant for any delicate or fine motor work, but with a few modifications, they could be made to serve. If Sam wanted them to, that was, and if Hunt was willing to put in enough effort. There was no way Sam would ask Cartwright to do it, let alone allow Hunt to order her to do it. "What, don't you think you'll have earned a shore leave by then?" Sam asked. He scanned the file regarding Hunt's misdeeds again and compared it to the one regarding his shining moments.

"Captain's got to stay with the ship," Hunt said, and patted Sam's console with his clean hand. "You're not going to go turning me out, are you, Sammy?"

Sam highlighted several notes, including the profit margins they'd achieved on Blackpool Three, and closed the file. "No. But don't push your luck."

Hunt grinned and lounged back again, looking supremely content with his place in the galaxy until he started to shiver. He opened a communication channel to engineering. "Cartwright, is there a problem with the enviros?"

"No, sir," she answered after a moment. "Why, what's wrong?"

Hunt scowled at Sam's pickup. "Ah, probably nothing. Do me a favor, love?"

"What's that?"

"Disconnect the craniotech and teach him a lesson."

Sam kept the channel open and made no comment. It wasn't the first time Hunt had threatened to work out how to do it or hire someone who could, and it wouldn't be the last.

The comm picked up Cartwright's intake of breath, along with her laughter. "Are you fighting again, sir?" Sam would take the whole ship offline if she tried, and worse would happen if she succeeded.

Hunt pulled his jacket shut and shivered. "No."

"Good," Cartwright said. "I'd better get back to the maintenance, sir."

"You do that." Hunt cut the channel. "Well, Sammy-boy?"

Sam turned the heat back up along with the ventilation system. "Next time, go to your bunk."

Hunt snorted. "I will when you say that as if you mean it."

There were various methods to remove him, and decreasing the temperature was the very least of what Sam could do. Still, there were benefits in having someone in the command chamber, whatever he was doing to distract himself from his real work. "Next time," Sam promised him. "So keep your hands above decks."

"Yes, sir," Hunt said, and gave him an ironic salute that Sam didn't believe for a moment.


End file.
